Release 81

⦁ Support for executing multiple backup steps in parallel (!)
⦁ Support for waking up computer to run scheduled backups
⦁ Support for password-protecting UI access in service mode
⦁ Support for replicating case changes in file and folder names

When enabled, this option will cause Bvckup 2 to ask Windows to wake up computer around the time of the next scheduled backup run. If no user interaction is registered while the backup is running, Windows will put it back to sleep once the backup is done.

It's a program-wide option that can also be set on per-backup basis with an override.

With Release 81 it's now possible to have the UI prompt for the password when it is being started up in service mode. This option is primarily meant for preventing non-admin local users on the host machine from opening the UI and messing with the setup.

⦁ Improved progress reporting for longer copies - this has to do with the UI feature of displaying additional decimal digits in %-age counter when the copy is going slow. Previously, the decimal precision was not reset when the copy was completed, so if the next copy was fast, it ended up showing a %-age counter that showed a frenzy of activity. No more of this.

⦁ Improved log indexing performance - this has to do with how the logging system works in the program. The backup engine is a log writer and the UI is a log reader. Logs can grow big, so the UI builds a separate index in order to be able to display them quickly. Index building involves parsing logs, line by line. This release reworks how this parsing is done, speeding it up by a factor of 300.

⦁ Resolved an issue with the planning module not being able to produce correct backup plan when multiple files from different levels of a folder were moved to a new directory and the folder itself was deleted. In certain cases the resulting plan would have two steps in the wrong order, which was caught during the plan validation phase, which in turn triggered an abort.

⦁ Reworked retrying logic to act on errors that occur when processing item attributes. That is, the program will now retry folder creation, file/folder move and file copying steps if they fail with a transient error when cloning item's meta data (attributes, timestamps, security info, etc.)

⦁ Reworked backup summary wording to be more precise in presence of errors and retries. See the above link for details.

⦁ Reworked logging to preserve original IDs of steps when they are retried. This is a purely cosmetic fix. Previously, when a backup step was retried, it would appear in the log under a new step ID. Now the ID is preserved, so it's easier to find all retries of the same operation.

⦁ Reworked name case changing logic to handle certain case better.

More specifically, if both file's and its parent folder's names need a case change (on the backup side), then in some cases these two changes will be made _exactly_ in parallel, resulting in some rather obscure errors (e.g. "the file in use" reported for the folder rename). The fix was to sequence these operations, so that one is executed after the other.

Kudos to Mike for reporting this.

⦁ Reworked auto-update option to not require a production license. Previously, when the program is set to auto-update itself, it wouldn't do that if there was no valid license. For the life of me I can't recall why it was done this way, but regardless of that this restriction is now removed.

⦁ Fixed an issue on Windows XP with handling backup cancellation. This had to do with certain Windows function being not available on XP and re-implemented using another, XP-specific API, which in turn appears to have been documented incorrectly, so things weren't working as designed.

And, yes, someone did actually run into this issue, so they ARE still on XP.

Release 81.3.1

This is 81.3 with a small patch for an one-off issue with the former. If you run into 81.3 reporting "Something went wrong", go Help > Menu > [Check for updates] and update to this release.